


Crack the Sky

by Winterotter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21978136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterotter/pseuds/Winterotter
Summary: Poe finds out what Finn wanted to tell Rey, but, not without also being put in a life-threatening situation and revealing more of himself than he otherwise would have.
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 50
Kudos: 771





	Crack the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for how this conversation could possibly happen. With a stormpilot-y twist at the end.

* * *

“Stupid,” Finn muttered, “Go explore those ruins, they said. That’s where the deserters are hiding, they said. It’ll be fine, they said. The deserters will listen to you, be glad to see you, they said. Well, they weren’t and this is not fine!” He aimed another ineffectual kick at the pile of rocks.

“Enough, Finn,” Poe said.

“What, you think I can cause another cave in?”

“Honestly? Yeah, I’d say that’s a possibility. Just, take a breath, okay buddy?”

“Nah, I’m good. In fact — I think I can shift this one a bit — maybe if I —“ He wedged his fingers in the space between two of the biggest boulders and pulled. He put all his weight into it, straining in hopes of moving it a single inch. It was useless, it didn’t budge. There was enough light from their flashlights to illuminate the room they were in and the sole doorway. Just enough to show them how bad off they were, in his opinion. And Poe wasn’t helping, just reclining back against the wall and watching him struggle.

“Give it a rest,” Poe said, “you’re more likely to bring another group of rocks down on us than to move enough of them to get out.”

Finn braced his hands against the rock, resting his forehead between them and closing his eyes. He’d rest for a bit and then make another attempt. “How did it go so wrong,” he muttered, “intelligence said these ruins were stable, that the deserters had signaled they were willing to discuss terms. And to top it all off, our comms aren’t working. I don’t understand how they got it so wrong.”

“Bad intel happens,” Poe said, “maybe they sent us to the wrong ruins. Maybe they were stable at one point and then something happened to make them the death trap they are now. Maybe this whole thing was a trap set by the deserters. Maybe they’re not deserters at all. I don’t know.”

“That. . . that’s just. Force’s sake, how are you so calm? We’re trapped, with only the limited provisions in your pack, and assuming the intel wasn’t totally wrong — the temperature will drop significantly at nightfall.”

“Yeah, they’re probably right about the temperature. We have that kind of luck.”

“Unfortunately true. Look, toss me your pack. There’s gotta be something we can use to blast our way out of here. Maybe I can rig something up. Rose taught me a few things.”

Poe stared at him, mouth opening and closing incredulously. He slid down from his reclining position to sit on the ground and stared some more. “Blast our way out? Finn, that’s _really_ not a good idea. The ceiling doesn’t look stable and I’d rather not get buried alive.”

“Fine, what’s your plan to get us out of this mess then? Between your time in the resistance and as a spice runner,” Finn couldn’t stop himself from making a face at the latter occupation, “you’ve got to have gotten out of similar situations.”

“I think you have the wrong idea about what I used to do. I’ve always predominantly been a pilot, and these days you can add being a general, but I haven’t been on the ground a lot Finn.”

“Uh-huh, what’s your plan, General Dameron?”

“You really wanna know? My plan is to wait for Rey to find us. We’ve already missed one check-in, they’ll be organizing a search party and you know she’ll insist on joining. That’s not the part we should be worried about.”

Finn aimed another vicious kick at the rocks. He frowned when it only succeeded in raining gravel and dust down on his head, “Fine. What should we be worried about?”

“The cold. It’s been getting steadily colder the longer we’ve been here and it’s only going to continue. The search party may not find us till the morning: we’ve got to survive that long. If the deserters were going to change their mind and rescue us, they would have by now.”

Finn frowned and sure enough, now that it had been brought to his attention, it was chillier. He sighed and watched the visible gust of air from his breath. That was a bad sign, he knew. His breath hadn’t been doing that before.

“Okay. Don’t suppose you have a blanket in your pack?”

Poe jerked his chin in a curt nod, “I do, actually,” he said, “but, I, ah, I’m going to need some help getting it out.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s kind of out of my reach.”

“So? It’s two feet away, Poe, get up and get it. Seriously. Why are you being so difficult? Rey was right, you always make everything an uphill battle.”

Poe closed his eyes, his jaw clenched. “I’m not trying to be,” his voice was as strained as his expression, “I would get it if I could. But, I uh, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?”

“That firefight we had just before the cave in? I may have, maybe, took a hit. My shirt looks good, but it doesn’t do much to prevent blaster damage.”

Finn crossed the room in two steps, dropping to his knees beside him. All of a sudden, Poe’s position on the ground was a lot less annoying and a lot more worrying. He’d thought it was just Poe’s general unflappability, his usual refusal to get worked up about events out of his control, but if he had taken a hit —

He placed a hand on Poe’s side and pulled it back when he found it to be warm and wet. He stared at his palm, the room lit enough to make out the red color of the liquid there. “Oh no,” he murmured, “Poe . . .”

“I know,” Poe said, “get my pack. There should be a medkit in there. Bandages, an emergency blanket, that kind of thing.”

He scrambled to get it, but not without first tossing a glare over his shoulder, “why did you wait so long to say something?”

But Poe didn’t answer, his eyes shut again and his breathing shallow. Finn swallowed down a burst of fear and hastened back to his side. He gripped his shoulder, “you’re going to be okay,” he said, “I’m going to fix you up.”

“I know,” Poe said again, opening his eyes and watching him. “You’re going to need to cut my shirt away, I would help, but . . .”

Finn looked up, noting Poe’s grimace and how still he was holding himself. Every little movement would have to be agony to get Poe to sit that still. “I got you,” he murmured, grabbing a pair of scissors and beginning to cut.

“Of course, this happened on a day when I’m wearing my favorite shirt,” Poe muttered. But the joke was undercut by the way he struggled to speak, the little gasps he had to take between the words.

Finn frowned and concentrated on what was in front of him. The wound was small in circumference, but looked deep, and surrounded by more blood than he was comfortable with. “Okay, I need to check if there’s an exit wound. Can you lean forward a bit?”

He knew how much it must have hurt when Poe let out a small grunt - he was pretty sure one of Poe’s grunts equaled a scream from a regular person. But he managed to lean forward enough for Finn to get a hand to his back, groping for any sign that the shot had gone all the way through him.

“Finn,” Poe whispered, his strength leaving him as he slumped back. He just managed to get his hand out of the way.

“No exit wound,” he said, “which is good.”

“Clean it. Then pack the wound,” Poe said, his eyes fluttering, “bandage it as tight as you can.”

“Who’s the medic here?”

“Neither of us,” Poe snorted.

Finn found nothing to say to that, he rummaged in the kit for a pressure cloth to seal the wound, bandages, alcohol, and tape. He was glad Leia had made him sit through basic first aid and triage classes when he’d first joined the resistance, that he’d been drilled in how to handle basic wounds. His focus on helping Poe was keeping his panic at bay, for the moment. He opened the canister of rubbing alcohol, and without warning, poured it over the wound. It was enough to finally wring a moan out of Poe.

“Fuck,” he breathed, biting his lip and turning his face away from Finn. This wasn’t the first time Finn had seen him in pain, hell, he’d been fresh from a torture session the first time they’d met. But he’d never seen him really acknowledge his pain before, never seen him do more than grunt, pick himself up, and continue the mission. Sometimes with a pithy remark. But it had never seemed to slow him down, before. He was beginning to realize he’d taken Poe’s resilience for granted, that he’d thought him invulnerable to a degree. Seeing him like this, bloody and in pain and broken, made something in him ache. As if he was the one who’d taken a shot to his middle. He grabbed the pressure cloth and pressed hard down on the wound, he needed to be sure the seal held, and this time Poe was prepared and didn’t groan, smothering the sound behind clenched teeth.

“I’m so sorry,” Finn said, “but that’s the worst part done.”

Poe didn’t answer, his gaze fixed on something off to the side that Finn couldn’t see. “Alright,” he said, “I’m just going to layer on some bandages and tape it all down, like this. Then I’ll get the blanket and we can work on warming up. We’ll wait it out, you were right, Rey will rescue us. She’ll be here before you know it.”

“Sure.”

“Really, Poe, this is your plan I’m agreeing to.” He said as he ripped open the foil and pulled out the emergency blanket. It expanded in his hands and he was glad to see that it should be big enough to cover them both.

“My plan. . . is fantastic. Rey’ll find you. She’ll arrive and use her freaky mind powers to pinpoint you and we’ll be back at base in time for the noon meal. She’ll rip this whole place apart to find you.”

“She’d do the same for you.”

“Sure,” Poe said again.

Finn let that slide, shaking out the blanket. His hands were beginning to tremble and ache from the cold. Between the lowering temperature, his blood loss, and the shock Poe had to be experiencing - he wouldn’t have much time left. Rey needed to find them and soon.

“Okay, think you can lead forward again? I need to get this blanket behind you. Poe,” he said sharply, “I need you to stay awake and do this. Okay, please? Lean forward.”

“Yeah, I know,” Poe grumbled, “no need to raise your voice.”

Finn focused on getting the blanket between Poe and the cold wall, wrapping it around his shoulders. He hadn’t been talking loud before, and he worried about the fact Poe thought he had been. It was getting colder, the trembling had moved from his hands to the rest of him, but he made an effort to move slow and gentle as he settled next to Poe, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders and tucking it over his front to try to contain the warmth. He tried not to think about how much longer Poe had, but it was impossible.

“You’re shivering,” Poe said, and Finn looked up to find his eyes on him. Watching. “Come on, snuggle in.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Poe lifted his arm, a muscle in his jaw jumping, “Finn. Please.”

“Okay,” he said, scooting closer and curling into Poe’s side. He carefully settled his hand above the bandages, able to hold both corners of the blanket now and tuck it tighter around them both as Poe’s arm circled around him.

“See?” Poe murmured, “much better.”

It was true. Even injured, Poe ran hot and his warmth was seeping into Finn. He closed his eyes and tried to relax and not think about just how close they were pressed together. They’d never. . . done this before. Oh, they’d hugged and the like, but this felt different. More intimate, and Force, now was not the time for that.

“Finn,” Poe said, “talk to me, give me something to focus on.”

“What about?”

“Anything.”

“Alright, then. Ready to discuss why you didn’t tell me you were injured as soon as it happened?”

“Not really. You won’t like my answer.”

“Poe.”

“It was a combination of things. Mainly though, I was trying to process the pain and not pass out on you.”

“I appreciate the thought, but next time? Tell me sooner. You . . . You lost a lot of blood Poe. If I’d gotten it bandaged sooner . . .”

“My chances would still be the same,” Poe said, “I won’t make it through the night, and a few more minutes of bleeding didn’t make the difference.”

Finn jolted but Poe’s arm was an iron bar and kept him tucked into his side. How he still had the strength, he didn’t know. “I wasn’t lying when I said I haven’t spent much time on the ground. In battles. But, I’ve been injured like this before. I knew my odds as soon as I took the hit.”

“You should have damn well said something.”

“You were already panicking. I didn’t want to make it worse,” Poe murmured, and his voice was softer and there was a tired slur to it. A tingle of raw fear ran down Finn’s spine. His hand clenched around the blanket. He shook Poe lightly, trying to keep him awake without hurting him. Poe grunted but didn’t verbally protest.

Finn swallowed, his throat painfully dry. “Hey, no, come on Poe, you gotta stay with me. Okay? You are not allowed to pass out on me, that’s what you were trying to prevent, remember. Don’t do it to me now.”

“Mm. Still awake.”

“Good. Now just, stay that way. I’ll keep talking, okay, what do you want to talk about.”

“Whatever. Tell me about your breakfast, just talk.”

“Nah, that’s a boring choice.”

Poe huffed a laugh, the sound quickly morphing into a groan. That, well, that was a mixed result. Finn wanted to keep Poe’s spirits high, but he didn’t want to make him laugh if it hurt him. He needed something interesting to talk about that wasn’t too humorous. “You know that thing I wanted to tell Rey? When we were searching for the Wayfinder? I could, I’m ready, to tell you that. You know, if you still wanted to know.”

“Yeah,” Poe said.

“Okay. It wasn’t, it wasn’t a dying declaration or anything so interesting. But it was something I should have told her, told you, before that. It started the day we met, when I refused to fire on those villagers. I, at first I thought I’d just grown a conscience. Or just started listening to it. I told myself it was a lot of things. That the feeling that prompted me to do it was just me.” He looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of Poe’s face, “still with me?”

“Hm. Feeling. Conscience.”

“Close enough. The problem started when I began to get . . . Similar feelings. I knew where to find Rey on Starkiller, for example. I ignored it, but somehow I just knew. And the battle outside Maz’s - something told me you were the pilot leading the x-wings. I didn’t believe it until I saw you at the base, but I knew before that. I _knew_ you were alive. Then I got injured and I didn’t think about it again for a while.”

“Finn. Are you trying to . . . tell me that the Force . . . has been talking to you?”

“Hush, you’re skipping ahead. So after Crait, Rey began training with Leia. And she would talk to me about her lessons, and some of it made sense to me. That feeling? Maybe it wasn’t just a feeling. So I tried to, listen better. And then it got stronger and I just knew things I had no way of knowing. I could sense things, emotions, that kind of thing. I didn’t want to believe it at first, I mean what are the odds of someone like me being Force-sensitive?”

Poe’s attempt at a laugh this time was more a quiet gust of air, “pretty good, I’d say. You’ve always been special Finn. I can easily believe you’ve got the same mystical Force thing as Rey does.”

“Yeah, I guess. So, does this change anything?”

“Like what?”

“Come on, Poe, don’t play dumb. You don’t like the Force, it’s why you and Rey got off on such a rocky start.”

“It was only rocky at the start? That’s news to me.”

“Poe.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ve been on the wrong side of the Force enough times to be wary of it,” Poe said, his hand spasmed where it was resting on Finn’s back. It almost made Finn regret bringing this up. He knew the kind of memories this conversation must bring up for Poe. “But I would never hold it against you. I trust you.”

“I’m a bit surprised, I was sure you’d . . .”

“React badly? You really thought I’d be what, mad at you? That’s what you think of me.”

“Don’t make it sound like that.”

“Like what? Like, you thought I was a bad enough friend, person, that I’d hold something you can’t control against you.”

“Rey.”

Poe sighed, “of course it comes back to Rey.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Finn said.

“Finn,” Poe trailed off, his voice which had been getting steadier during their conversation, quieted and seemed to give out on his name. “Rey and me . . . Our sniping at each other, it has nothing to do with her having the Force.”

“So explain it. You two give me whiplash, going from acting like the best of friends to taking digs at each other.”

“That’s a long story,” Poe murmured, “m too tired.”

“Poe, come on, wake up. Explain the Rey thing to me, come on. Please, Poe.”

“I’m awake.” He said and the slur that had been plaguing his words was more pronounced. “Short version? We like . . . arguing. Don’t mean it. Mostly. Long version . . . to be continued.”

“You better continue later. You can tell me tomorrow one we’re back at base and you’ve been cleared by medical.”

Poe turned his head towards Finn, angling down to catch his gaze. They weren’t sitting level, Finn slumped lower down to fit comfortably under Poe’s arm. He regretted that now as he strained to hold Poe’s stare. “Sure, buddy. Remind me tomorrow.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Finn warned as he risked shimmying upwards. It took a moment but Poe pulled his arm out of the way, hugging it to his chest. He groaned but seemed to realize why Finn had shifted them when Finn was on his level and able to turn to face him fully. He nudged their foreheads together, gratified by the way Poe’s mouth twitched into a smile and the lines of pain around his eyes eased.

“Tell me a story,” Poe said.

“Okay,” Finn said, racking his brain for something to talk about that would keep Poe's attention. The temperature had to have dropped several more degrees, Poe's face had gone white and his lips were beginning to look blue. He didn't have much time left. Rey needed to get to them, soon. "Want to hear about the time Han and I threw Phasma in a trash compactor?"

"Always."

"Good," Finn said, "So, it was Han's idea. He seemed . . . to take an odd kind of pleasure in it. Not going to lie, I enjoyed listening to her curse as we threw her in. She said some words I’d never _heard_ used in that context before.”

Poe huffed a laugh, he nudged their faces together, his eyes big and knowing and sad. "Finn, I'm going to pass out soon."

"No," Finn said, "No, you're not, you are not allowed to do that, do you hear me, Poe? That is not going to happen. You don't get to leave me in this cave alone with your unconscious body."

"M sorry," Poe murmured and his eyelids were slipping closed.

"No," Finn said, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. "Stay awake, that's an order, General."

"You . . . don't outrank . . . me, General," Poe's head tipped forward more, resting there as if he didn't have the strength to hold it up at all anymore. Finn shut his eyes. It was the closest they'd ever been and he hated the situation that had brought it about.

"Come on, Poe," he whispered, "it's your turn to tell me something. A story. A secret. Just talk to me."

Poe's eyes fluttered but didn't open properly. "When we . . . reunited," he rasped, "after the firefight . . . outside Maz's . . ." he trailed off, and Finn reached up to grip his jaw, cradle his face. "What about it?" he asked.

"You were . . . wearing my jacket," he said, "that was when I knew."

"Knew what?"

But Poe didn't answer and Finn only knew he was still breathing because he could feel the small gusts against his face. It was too light, too shallow, for his comfort. "Poe, come on, don't leave me hanging. What did you know?"

"Knew . . . you would . . ."

"I would, what? Stay with me, come on, tell me what you knew. Oh man, are you Force-sensitive too? No, the odds of that are insane."

"No," Poe whispered. "I knew . . . that you . . . would be important. To me . . ." he slumped further over, his weight settling fully on Finn. "You looked . . . good. My jacket . . . too good. Gorgeous." His head fell forward, landing on Finn's shoulder.

"No. No, no, no, Poe, stay with me, don't leave me now. Please, don't leave me." He dropped his grip on the blanket to shake his shoulder. "Stay with me, Poe."

There was no response. The shaking didn't prompt a wince, or a twitch, or anything. "No, this is not happening, not now, not like this, for Force's sake -" he grabbed Poe by both shoulders and shook him. Harder than he had before, harder than he probably should have given his wound, but he didn't care. If the pain woke up Poe it would be worth it. "Poe! Poe, _please,_ don't leave -"

He lowered him to the ground, fumbling to get his hand under the blanket to feel for a pulse. There wasn't one, not that he could find, and he could no longer see Poe's breath gusting out. He wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating. Finn felt numb as he moved his hand down to the wound and ripped the bandages away. He covered the inflamed wound with his hand and closed his eyes. Concentrating harder than he ever had before on trying to reach out and mold the Force. Rey had never explained the healing thing to him, had never given him more of an explanation than that it involved sharing life force. But he had to try, he couldn't _not_ try to save Poe. He had never used the force like this — of course, this happened _now_ before he'd had any training, _before_ he knew how to do more than sense events and people. He refused to lose Poe over something he could have prevented if he'd manned up and told Rey about his force sensitivity earlier, gotten training earlier —

On the edge of his mind, he felt a familiar presence grow closer. Rey. She was here, approaching the ruins, but still too far away. Force, they were still buried, there was no way she could get here in time, those fucking rocks were still there. He roared his frustration, throwing his hand out, and the rocks blew outward in a blast of sound and debris. Finn didn't stop to stare, lifting Poe into his arms and standing. The Force flowed through him and suddenly he knew how Rey could run so fast and put such strength behind her blows. When he was connected like this he could feel it enhancing his every movement. He bolted from the room, heading towards Rey's shining Force presence. She would fix this, she would be able heal Poe. He refused to believe anything else.

* * *

"You saved his life," Rey said, hours after their escape and rescue - he thought it was the next day. He'd lost track of time somewhere in between Rey using her lightning to restart Poe’s heart and her healing the worst of the damage. He had barely registered that the first rays of sunlight had been breaking through the trees as they'd carried Poe's limp form to the Falcon. "Poe is going to be okay. Thanks to you. You stopped the bleeding, kept him warm, and kept him awake as long as you could. Long enough. You got him out of there. You _saved him_."

She clasped his hands in both of hers: warm, friendly, loving. He gripped her hands, probably tighter than was comfortable for her. But she didn't wince, instead returning the grip with equal force. "He's going to be okay," Rey said, "take a break, get cleaned up, and by the time you get back he'll be awake and demanding to be allowed visitors. Or trying to escape."

"Right," Finn said, "will you —"

"I'll stay right here until you're back or he's asking for visitors. Whichever happens first."

"Thank you," he gave her hands a squeeze and jumped to his feet, fully intending to rush through getting cleaned up so that he could return as soon as possible. He got back in under fifteen minutes but it was still long enough that Poe was awake and they'd been allowed back to sit with him.

It was strange sitting there, with Rey on Poe's other side. They were talking like they normally did — Rey was teasing Poe about his record as the most often injured, and Poe was arguing that she and Finn both cheated with the force, and every now and then BB-8 piped in with mentions of Poe's injuries from before he'd met them. Poe huffed and complained, but the corner of his mouth was ticked up in a smile.

Their interactions were familiar, typical of them, and yet it wasn't the same. They weren't the same, because Finn would glance at Poe where he was laid up on the bed — and he would see him sitting on the ground, his face too close, his eyes too resigned. He couldn't unsee those moments in the ruins. He couldn't forget the comfort of sitting that close or the unbridled terror he'd felt when Poe stopped breathing. He couldn't unhear the last thing Poe had told him.

_I knew that you would be important to me._

Poe caught him staring a few times, his brows arching, but he didn't draw attention to it. He reclined back in the bed, a hand claimed by Rey and Finn respectively. And every now and then, usually when Rey was distracted by BB-8, he would meet Finn's stare and look back: his gaze steady, and warm, and completely unreadable.

In the end, Finn didn't ask Poe about anything he'd said in the ruins. They'd both been panicking and Poe had been suffering from blood loss and shock. Somehow, bringing up their conversation didn't seem like the thing to do. So he waited, waited for Poe to bring it up. To show any indication he remembered what he'd told Finn at the end. But Poe never brought it up, or well, he made sure Finn knew he remembered being told that Finn could sense the Force and reiterated that it didn't matter to him, but he noticeably didn't reference anything else that had happened.

And still, weeks later, Finn couldn't stop hearing Poe's words in his head.

_You looked good. Too good. Gorgeous._

That must have been the blood loss. Poe was friendly with everyone, flirty with everyone, it didn't mean anything that he'd called Finn gorgeous. Or did it? They were friends, best friends, family, but they weren't _that._ They didn't like each other like _that._ Did they?

_Gorgeous._

Sometimes, he would look at Poe and that word would repeat in his head. He'd hear the rasp of Poe's voice, see his gentle smile, remember the warmth of being pressed that close together. It had seemed different from the other times he’d seen Poe flirt. Maybe it was the dire situation. Or maybe something else made it different. And then he would come out of his daydream to find Poe, and Rey, watching him with amused looks.

It came to a head almost a month after the ruin escapade, as they’d begun to call it. He and Rey had returned from spending a few days away ‘communing with the Force’ and they had found themselves immediately set upon by BB-8. He rolled up to them at such speed that other people were dodging out of his path. He let out a series of beeps, rolling forwards and backwards in front of them.

Rey crouched down to greet him properly while Finn focused on translating the quicker than normal binary beeps. “Poe wants to see me,” he said.

“It seems that way,” Rey said, looking up at him with a grin. “BB-8 says he’s been pining while we were away.”

“Well,” Finn shrugged, “can you blame him?”

She laughed and stood up, “go see him. I’ll handle checking in and make excuses for you both. But I expect to see you for breakfast tomorrow. On-time. Both of you.”

He stared at that, blinking at the seriousness on her face, “you think it will take that long?”

But Rey didn’t answer, striding off towards the hub of the base, BB-8 trailing after her. Finn rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn’t unusual for him to seek out Poe immediately after returning to base, and vice versa when it was Poe who had been gone, but this was new. Poe had sent BB-8 to ensure he came to see him. That meant something, but for the life of him, Finn couldn’t figure out what.

He glanced at the sun setting behind the trees. Poe would be in his quarters this time of day. He dithered for a moment more, before setting his shoulders and going to see what this was about. It was probably nothing.

Finn stuttered to a stop outside of Poe’s room, blinking at the pad left leaning against the closed door. He looked around the area, but there was no one else around. Stooping over he picked it up and the screen unlocked and an ‘unread’ message icon popped up. He glanced at Poe’s door, intrigued and uneasy, but tapped the icon.

 _Finn,_ it read.

_This is where I apologize for being a coward. I thought about saying this to your face, but I didn’t want you to feel cornered. Or obligated to answer._

_I remember what I told you, that day. I was right, you know, you are important to me and you are gorgeous. You’re a good man and a better friend. I hope to never lose you or the privilege of being able to stand at your side._

_Do with this message what you will. Come inside if you want to talk. Delete it and walk away if you’d rather forget the whole thing._

_I know what I hope you’ll choose._

_Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

Finn turned the pad off and hugged it to his chest. He walked back until he hit the wall opposite of Poe’s door and could back up no further. He shut his eyes. _Poe remembered._ He remembered everything. And he’d apparently been as unsure as Finn about how to talk about it. He looked back at the pad. Of course, this was how Poe chose to handle it. This was a man who flirted outrageously with people he knew would never take him up on it and almost never with those who were genuinely interested in return. It made a twisted kind of sense that this is what he’d do when he was serious. He’d find a way to make his feelings known, a way that left the other person with all the power. Finn could walk away, he knew, and not even acknowledge the implications in Poe’s message. And Poe? He would take that as its own answer and he would never speak of it again. He’d wait in his quarters all night, hoping Finn would show, but accepting it if he didn’t.

He stepped back to the door, placing his hand on the scanner. Poe was sitting on his bunk, his head in his hands. He looked up at the sound of the door sliding open.

“Seriously?” Finn held up the pad and ignored the flicker of anxiety that crossed Poe’s face, “we’re going to have to discuss how to properly communicate. In ways that don’t give me an anxiety attack before I even get to the message. Later.”

“Whenever you want,” Poe said, his beautiful mouth stretching into a smile. He got to his feet but didn’t move closer. He would wait and let Finn be the one to make the advances. He was beginning to understand how this odd, reckless, amazing, man’s mind worked.

“You love me,” Finn said, taking one step closer.

“Yes.”

“Different from how you love Rey. And BB-8.” He took a second step.

“Yes.”

“You’re _in love_ with me.”

“Finn. Of course, I am.”

The toes of his boots brushed up against Poe’s socks. He heard Poe inhale sharply, was close enough now to see the way his pupils dilated. Still, Poe didn’t move.

“You want to date me. Be my boyfriend.”

“I prefer the term ‘partner’ if I’m honest,” Poe said, his smile turning wry. And Finn couldn’t resist it any longer — he had to kiss that mouth. He kissed him gently, and without any real skill, his hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck. His fingers slid into those beautiful dark curls and tugged him closer. Poe made a small noise in his throat and pressed close, his arms wrapping around Finn. He pulled back, resting his forehead against Poe’s.

Poe, who was frowning, like he was worried he’d done something wrong. He brushed their lips together to disabuse him of that thought, “just,” he murmured, “taking a moment to appreciate being this close in much more pleasant circumstances.”

“Ah,” Poe said, his eyes dancing with amusement. “It is much better like _this_ , when I’m not dying slowly. Although, I can’t think of a better way to go than in your arms.”

Finn rolled his eyes but followed it up with another kiss. A harder one this time. He pulled back quickly and Poe tried to follow him. He covered his mouth with his hand and ignored the glare he got for it.

“For the record, I’m in love with you too.”

He removed his hand and this time it was Poe that pulled him close and kissed him. His hands found Finn’s waist and twisted in his shirt, stepping backward and tugging Finn with him. They didn’t stop kissing until they hit the bed and toppled backward onto it. For a moment, they lay there in companionable silence. Catching their breath and watching each other.

“Breakfast,” Finn said.

“What?”

“We have to meet Rey for breakfast. If we’re late she’ll kill us.”

Poe grabbed Finn and rolled them so that he was on top. He leaned down and they were kissing again. “Plenty of time, babe,” he murmured against Finn’s mouth, “we’ve got plenty of time.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
